Film Reviews of Dune Part 2, Spaceman plus 'quickies' for Lisa Frankenstein. Doctor Jeckyll, The Parades, The Persian Version & Cabrini (Ep. 53, 8th March 2024)

Bob Mann (00:41.51)
Hello everybody and welcome to Flickering Dreams again. We have a few films to look at.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (00:51.192)
Yeah, it might be.

I've got a red light saying recording.

Bob Mann (01:11.33)
this week and we are also going to be in the run up to the Oscars next Sunday. So we will preview a special Oscar prediction show that we'll be releasing in a couple of days time with our own views of the Oscars, but in this podcast, we are going to be looking at the big film and I mean, big film of the week, which is Dune Part

2. We're also looking at Spaceman and we are going to give quick reviews as well of the following films. Lisa Frankenstein, Doctor Jekyll, which is on Apple, The Parades, which is on Netflix and The Persian Version out in cinemas and also Cabrini, which will be out in cinemas soon. We may actually return to some of those films when more of us have seen them, but we're going to give you quick one minute reviews of that.

So we are joined tonight by Scott Forbes of the Forbes Film and TV Review, and also the Reverend Andy Godfrey from Sorted Magazine and Konnect Radio. Konnect with a K. And we are going to start here with, I say that big film of the week, which is Dune 2. Trying to find my piece of paper.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (02:25.423)
Ha ha ha.

Bob Mann (02:37.034)
So in Dune 2, after betrayal by the Emperor played by Christopher Walken in this film, and Baron Harkonnen returning from the first film played by Stellan Skarsgard, the House of Atreides is all but destroyed. But Paul Atreides, played by Timothy Chalamet, Timothée Chalamet, and his mother, played by Rebecca Ferguson, have survived and they seek acceptance from the Fremen. Some see Paul as the new Messiah.

but others, none believers think he's just a very naughty boy and seem has a dangerous spy. Let's see a clip.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (03:12.39)
He he he he.

Bob Mann (03:51.99)
Nothing like a good snog on a sand dune is there. And takes me back to my teenage days. Right. Um, too much information. This is epic in the true sense of the word. I have to say, um, there's action, there's adventure, there's revenge, there's death, there's new life, there's love, as you saw there, there's loss and there's more than.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (04:03.066)
Definitely.

Bob Mann (04:20.91)
good old dose of religion. And all of this stuff gets mixed up by Denis Villeneuve and splattered onto the wide screen with absolutely superb sound and a wonderful score by Hans Zimmer. The desert scenes you see are really something. And this is a film that really you have to see on the big screen.

The actual deserts were in Abu Dhabi, Jordan and Namibia. Um, but I was utterly engrossed in this. I have to say, I think the key thing in the film, uh, and I said after coming out, well, that's, that's the Oscar for best sound wrapped up is the sound design, uh, right from the deafening opening words, uh, in spoken in some foreign language. I'm not sure which alien language it's supposed to be.

Um, the rest of the sound combined with the music, there are points as in Oppenheimer, when your seat actually physically starts to vibrate underneath you with the low, um, the low sounds coming out of the speakers. Um, I say Hans Zimmer score. Again, I'll be surprised if this doesn't win, uh, best Oscar for next year for best score. And. The actual cinematography. Uh.

is superb. Many of the pictures that you see on the screen, you could pluck off the screen and stick on an art gallery wall, I think, and charge people to go and see it. I thought the acting was really good and I wouldn't be surprised if there's some acting nominations that come out of this film. I thought particularly well with Javier Bardem and Rebecca Ferguson. I thought they were both particularly good in this. Zendaya is just magnetic in it.

And for once, Willy Wonka actually didn't look too bad. I didn't actually think of him as Timothée Chalamet for a lot of the film. I thought he did a good job. Almost unrecognizable in the film is Austin Butler as this psychotic Feyd-Rautha. And I thought he was really good. And there was also a surprise cameo, which I actually put in my online review, but I won't spoil on this podcast of somebody that I wasn't expecting to see in the film. So that was terrific.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (06:20.037)
Yeah.

Bob Mann (06:46.99)
My only negatives were it's a long old film, but for me it wasn't long enough. There were times when some of the scenes just felt quite rushed and there was few examples. Some of the battle scenes seemed to be almost finished too early. There's like a gladiatorial scene in the finale which I thought could have gone on as in kind of

Rev. Andy Godfrey (06:55.311)
Ha ha.

Bob Mann (07:16.746)
the film Gladiator for a good eight or nine minutes of back and forth and playing to the crowd. But it kind of ends very suddenly. And I actually thought that this could have been a part two and a part three here, both as two hour films, rather than having a nearly three hour squashed together part one. It just felt to me as if it was a little bit stuck, squashed in.

Scott Forbes (07:27.07)
Cough

Bob Mann (07:47.328)
into this feature. But I absolutely loved it and I'll now hand over to Scott who I know was not necessarily a fan of the original Dune.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (07:56.494)
Here we go.

Scott Forbes (07:59.886)
Yeah, I think me and Emma both mentioned in the previous episode we were on that we weren't big fans. I think there is a lot going on, a lot of characters, a lot of tribes, a lot of heavy lore that you have to try and understand. It was long and, in my opinion, a little bit boring at points. Not all of it, but some of it was. And so I went into this one hopeful.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (08:22.903)
Wow.

Scott Forbes (08:29.49)
And I did enjoy this much more. I thought that. If I was going to say the negatives, I would say I did not feel the emotional connection that a lot of people have with this, and perhaps that is because there's so much going on that I didn't fully understand what I was watching all the time, and there was because there's so many characters thinking, who are they? What's their relationship to them again?

Bob Mann (08:32.595)
Okay, good.

Scott Forbes (08:54.99)
and how are they connected? And what does that mean for that person if that person over there is doing this? And I was trying to think about it when I was watching it to the point where I'm like, I wasn't fully engaged in what I was watching because I was too busy trying to figure it out. And so that part left me a little bit cold. But in terms of pure filmmaking, I mean, I could just rattle through Oscar categories at this point, cinematography, visual effects, sound, score. It's just...

Rev. Andy Godfrey (09:11.078)
Bye.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (09:22.323)
Absolutely.

Scott Forbes (09:23.982)
All these things that Denis Villeneuve and the rest of the team behind it have put together is fantastic. Production design, costume design, particularly with Florence Pugh's costumes, and I thought everything she was wearing looked really stylish.

Bob Mann (09:41.364)
Everything she did I think was fabulous in this film. I just wanted to see more of her.

Scott Forbes (09:45.566)
I mean, just in general, Florence Pugh is just amazing anyway. So yeah, I think the performances were good across the board. I don't see Oscar nominations for the acting, unless there's a very sort of Dark Horse, Austin Butler surprise supporting nomination. I don't feel that this is an acting movie. But will it be like the previous movie, where it picks up like all of the 'Techs'?

Bob Mann (09:47.402)
Yeah.

Bob Mann (09:58.434)
Yeah.

Bob Mann (10:15.395)
Hmm.

Scott Forbes (10:15.57)
Possibly. But then in Oscar history, how often do you find that when a movie does haul, that then the sequel hauls in all the same ones?

Rev. Andy Godfrey (10:25.815)
Lord of the Rings?

Bob Mann (10:27.166)
Yeah, I was going to say Lord of the Rings. And that won, that won Best Picture didn't it for Return of the King. This feels like this feels like it could be a Best Picture winner as well for me.

Scott Forbes (10:28.34)
Yeah.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (10:29.222)
Thanks. Ha ha ha.

Scott Forbes (10:32.45)
Yeah, I'd have to remember like between one and the other.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (10:33.102)
Yeah.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (10:36.822)
Yeah.

Scott Forbes (10:39.398)
Well, the thing is that Return of the King was the final one and there's a big question mark with this in terms of is this the end? Yeah.

Bob Mann (10:50.434)
Dune Messiah. No, I believe Dune Messiah was already being green lit. Yeah.

Scott Forbes (10:54.738)
Has it been announced? Okay. Because yeah, the way it ended, I was like, wait a minute, I didn't know that there was gonna be a third one and then you just left this open to this whole other story. I was like, so it's like the last one where you, at least the last one we knew it wasn't the end, whereas this one, it got to the end and I'm like, oh, there's still more story. I was like, damn. But yeah, so I enjoyed it. I wouldn't say I love these Dune movies.

Bob Mann (11:15.691)
I'm sorry.

Scott Forbes (11:24.842)
but I was definitely entertained with this one.

Bob Mann (11:27.894)
Good, good. Andy, anything to add?

Rev. Andy Godfrey (11:31.894)
I just absolutely loved it Bob, I'm with you. It's not very often we say that a film isn't long enough. I agree I could have sat there longer and watched a lot more. I mean I don't know about you guys, I grew up reading the Dune books and Scott you say about how much more story is there. There were actually 23 Dune books. So we've got the potential for an awful lot more movies. You know and who knows.

Scott Forbes (11:50.611)
Mm-hmm.

Scott Forbes (11:54.561)
Okay, bye. Ha ha ha.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (12:00.734)
I mean, I could perhaps see this becoming a TV series as a spin-off, perhaps, you know, with telling the rest of the Dune books, you know, in this sort of spin-off series. I read them.

Bob Mann (12:13.297)
I think it's fair to say that the Dune book, the quality of the books tended to degrade, decline.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (12:17.454)
I mean, I read all 23 and they did go slowly downhill after the first couple, yeah. But I really love that. And having seen the David Lynch version, you know, remember seeing that at the cinema, which was a total and utter mess. This is incredible. This is fantastic. The worms looked more impressive than last time. Yeah, yeah.

Bob Mann (12:38.122)
man don't they when they come out those dunes like that it's absolutely

Rev. Andy Godfrey (12:43.79)
The story is progressing, the story progressed nicely. For me, this is one of the best sequels I've seen since Aliens. And I really thought it was, I really just thought it was excellent. I can't add much more to what you guys have said, but I absolutely loved it. And yeah, I will be first in the queue for Dune Messiah when it comes out. Yeah.

Bob Mann (12:58.56)
Hmm.

Bob Mann (13:05.026)
I had one other quibble that you see the efforts that Paul Atreides has to run at full pelt along a sand dune and jump on the back of one of these worms as it's whizzing along. And yet somehow, they put a whole bunch of people together with a kind of elephant Howdah type construction on the back of one of these worms. How did that happen? Is there some...

Rev. Andy Godfrey (13:15.942)
Ha ha

Scott Forbes (13:29.027)
Yeah.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (13:29.38)
This is if...

Bob Mann (13:31.438)
Is there some Dune subway station somewhere that they're not showing us where the worms get pushed down this tunnel? And then they stop them and they say "Mind the Gap" and they all climb on and then let them go. Right. I mean, I don't want to. Yeah.

Scott Forbes (13:32.426)
Cough

Rev. Andy Godfrey (13:43.756)
If if Bryce, I was just gonna say if Bryce Dallas-Howard can outrun a T-Rex in high heels in the storm, anything's possible.

Bob Mann (13:53.198)
I yeah, that was my one quibble. I say I don't want to piss all over the sci-fi fans with this movie. But I thought how on earth did they all get on there? Yeah. Okay. Right. It is time now for a little bit of this. Oh.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (13:57.262)
No, I thought it was... Didn't even occur to me, to be honest, Bob.

Scott Forbes (14:05.002)
I did wonder that as well.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (14:12.339)
We can score it, bub.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (14:16.942)
Are we going to score Dune?

Bob Mann (14:19.05)
We are going to score Dune. Yes. Getting ahead of myself. Scores on the doors then for Dune. Um, I'm going to give this one a 10 out of 10. Scott.

Scott Forbes (14:19.955)
Oh yeah.

Scott Forbes (14:31.079)
For me it's a seven.

Bob Mann (14:32.322)
7 and Andy. 10 so that's 27 divided by 3 that's a 9.0 for the Flickering Dreams score. Making Dune Part 2 a hit! Wonderful. Okay. Now it's time for a little bit of this.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (14:34.21)
8 to 10.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (14:53.626)
I'm gonna go with my gut this week. After last week's disaster.

Bob Mann (14:55.482)
So this is the film quiz. We've only got Scott and Andy online, but before we came on air, I also let Emma and Dan play this round, because this is the last round in this current game of the film quiz. So just in the run into this, just to advise you where the scores were, Scott was in the lead with 340. Emma was...

50 points behind with 290. Andy and Dan shared third place with 200 points. So it's really between Emma and Scott. So if Emma got maximum points in her round and Scott doesn't know this film, then I think that would be a tie. So let's play. No, I'm not. I'm not.

Scott Forbes (15:47.334)
And you're not going to reveal her points before we play? Oh. Okay.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (15:51.886)
Hehehehe

Bob Mann (15:53.816)
Okay, here we go then with picture number one. See if you can identify this film.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (16:11.544)
Not writing anything down.

Bob Mann (16:15.287)
Nope, not a clue. I think this is quite a difficult one this week, but Emma might not have. Here's picture number two.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (16:36.406)
No, still not writing anything down.

Scott Forbes (16:37.393)
Nope.

Bob Mann (16:37.726)
No, still not writing. Picture number three.

Scott Forbes (16:50.938)
Oooo

Bob Mann (16:52.044)
Oh, Scott is looking as if that

Rev. Andy Godfrey (16:54.626)
I'm not writing anything down, I just...

Scott Forbes (16:57.234)
neither I but I've got a film in mind

Bob Mann (17:01.782)
Got a film in mind. Picture number four coming up then.

Scott Forbes (17:15.039)
Well it wasn't that film.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (17:16.746)
No, I haven't got a Scooby Dooby this week.

Bob Mann (17:17.201)
haha

Bob Mann (17:20.738)
Yeah

Rev. Andy Godfrey (17:23.195)
Oh, right there.

Bob Mann (17:28.842)
No. Picture number five then coming up.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (17:31.332)
No, sorry.

Scott Forbes (17:33.353)
Ugh.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (17:37.89)
I know it, I know it, I just can't think of the title.

Scott Forbes (17:40.894)
I mean, I know a title, but which one?

Bob Mann (17:44.278)
Hehe

Scott Forbes (17:46.558)
trying to see how young did they look there which

to you, I...

Scott Forbes (17:55.498)
Do I take a potential minus 10 if I get the wrong one?

Bob Mann (18:03.822)
Is he going, or is he going, or is he sticking?

Scott Forbes (18:04.029)
Uh.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (18:04.514)
I'm thinking but...

Scott Forbes (18:09.854)
So Emma would need to, if I do nothing, Emma needed to get it on the first one. Did she get it on the first one? I don't think she got it on the first one.

Scott Forbes (18:22.122)
I'm knocking.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (18:22.504)
I've written something down on number five.

Scott Forbes (18:25.05)
I'm not going to write anything. I'm not going to risk that minus 10.

Bob Mann (18:26.558)
Not going to lie, anything. No, I think that's a good strategic decision. So, um, what did you write down? Andy.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (18:28.29)
I got nothing to lose.

Scott Forbes (18:33.978)
one of the Rush Hour films.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (18:35.355)
I wrote down, I wrote down, Ride On.

Bob Mann (18:39.218)
Ride on. That's a minus 10 for Andy Godfrey And this is the answer.

Scott Forbes (18:41.478)
one of the Rush Hours but which Rush Hour?

Rev. Andy Godfrey (18:44.546)
Yeah, it's from the best shares.

Scott Forbes (18:47.85)
I'd be tempted to say two, but I don't know. It's three, oh, it's a good job I didn't write it.

Bob Mann (18:54.467)
Well, Dan wrote down on go 5 Rush Hour 2 and Emma wrote down on go 5 Rush Hour 2.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (18:59.459)
Rush Hour 3.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (19:03.015)
Oh!

Rev. Andy Godfrey (19:15.407)
Really.

Bob Mann (19:16.446)
So the champion then of this round of our framed Dr. Bob's movie mystery montage is Scott with a score of 340. Well done, Scott.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (19:30.842)
Well done Scott.

Scott Forbes (19:33.642)
Thank you, thank you. I'd like to thank God, I'd like to thank my parents. I'd like to thank Cineworld for the card that they gave me to see so many movies.

Bob Mann (19:43.179)
Yeah, yeah, there we go. And, um, Emma's in second place with 280 points. Uh, and Andy and Dan bring up the rear with 190 points. So they share, uh, the, um, the third place. We'll call it third place, Andy.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (20:01.431)
Are Dan and I are both older than Emma and Scott because I'm gonna say that's what's made the difference Except for the fact that Dan of course wasn't here for half of it. I'm feeling rubbish. I'm feeling useless All right

Bob Mann (20:06.582)
Oh, maybe. No, no, no. I know let's just let's just gloss over that fact. Yes, that was uh, so that was Rush Hour 3. It was number 642 in our top 1000 box office films So, uh made a decent amount of money, didn't it for a second sequel?

Scott Forbes (20:13.45)
I think Dan's a little bit younger than me.

Scott Forbes (20:30.834)
wasn't as good as the first two.

Bob Mann (20:32.418)
There you go. Right. Back to the films and we're looking at a film. I haven't noted down where this is. I think it's on Netflix, isn't it? And that is Spaceman. Scott, do you want to introduce that to us?

Rev. Andy Godfrey (20:33.37)
Never have.

Scott Forbes (20:48.626)
Not really!

Rev. Andy Godfrey (20:51.163)
Oh, disagreement coming up.

Bob Mann (20:53.252)
This is interesting because I've heard some people really really positive about this film and some people very very negative.

Scott Forbes (20:53.93)
Oh!

Scott Forbes (20:57.743)
I'm out.

Scott Forbes (21:02.374)
Well, Spaceman, in my humble opinion, is a film about starring Adam Sandler as an astronaut who is on a solar mission on the edge of the solar system. And he is unwell and all of a sudden...

Scott Forbes (21:25.758)
All of a sudden there is a giant talking spider who starts talking to him about relationships. Show a clip.

Bob Mann (22:07.65)
So Skinny Human, do you want to carry on and talk about this film? Which I must admit, I haven't seen it. I've been focused on my Oscar films this week.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (22:09.862)
Ha ha ha!

Scott Forbes (22:14.722)
Okay, if I have to.

Scott Forbes (22:20.862)
Fair enough. So, serious Sandler. It's a thing that in modern times is a lot better than comedy Sandler.

Bob Mann (22:30.851)
Mm-hmm.

Scott Forbes (22:32.414)
But this one is a little bit.

It's very experimental. It is very trippy in a way. And even though he's an astronaut, this is not a sci-fi movie. This is not a thriller in any way. This is quite a straightforward emotional drama just for people that have taken hallucinogenics.

Bob Mann (23:02.158)
the

Scott Forbes (23:04.554)
So we see him with his struggles. He's struggling with sort of sleep and his health. We see back home there is a pregnant wife or girlfriend, I can't remember exactly if they're married, played by Carrie Mulligan. And he is missing her and spends most of the movie talking to this spider about her and about love and relationships. I...

just did not really know what I was watching to be honest, Bob. I put this on not knowing anything more than the title and it starred Adam Sandler and Carrie Mulligan. So when I was watching it unfold, I was like, what did I put on?

Scott Forbes (23:55.814)
I just found it a bit tedious to be honest. It definitely swings for the fences. And I can see the people who do like it that can embrace the weirdness and look at it on a deeper level. There probably is something interesting in there, but it was just a little bit over the top and strange for me as a way of going into these themes and telling these ideas.

It feels like it's Adam Sandler Netflix money when he's just doing whatever because Netflix have this deal where it seems like he can just do whatever he wants whether they're wacky ideas or good serious ideas. I feel like Andy might go into a little bit more interesting areas in terms of how he feels about the themes of this. For me it was just weird and dull.

Bob Mann (24:56.614)
It's weird and dull. Okay. I mean, you talk, talk about psychological drama in space and my mind immediately goes to Solaris, um, with George Clooney. Okay. There you go. Over to you then, Andy.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (24:56.794)
Ha ha

Rev. Andy Godfrey (25:05.754)
Thank you Bob, I was just going to mention Solaris.

Scott Forbes (25:06.41)
Mm-hmm. Okay.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (25:12.662)
Yeah, so this really is a kind of updated Solaris in some respects, because in Solaris, both the original Russian film and the George Clooney film, you know, he was having visions back of Earth and trying to communicate with his wife and all sorts of things. I was actually thinking of Dark Star, believe it or not, when I was watching this, because the tagline for Dark Star was bombed out in space with a spaced out bomb, and the tagline for this could be bombed out in space with a talking spider.

Bob Mann (25:30.85)
Okay.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (25:41.718)
It's what Gene Roddenberry called cerebral science fiction, which is what he said he was trying to achieve with Star Trek. Looking at the human condition, looking at what makes us human, looking at what matters to us and what makes us tick as human beings. So I thought the themes are really, really interesting. He's out there in space on a mission to investigate a strange area of space that's appeared in the sky.

Basically, I thought it was really interesting. He's a Czech astronaut. He's not American. He's not being sent up by the Brits. He's being sent up by the Czechs. And this is kind of a future world where, hopefully, smaller nations are as equally important as some of the bigger ones. And maybe that's trying to say something as well. But I thought that the way in which his relationship with his wife, and I thought Carrie Mulligan was great in this, is depicted.

was really good, really touching, really deeply moving. I found their relationship, the to's and fro's, quite compelling. And the fact that we go backwards and forwards in time, seeing how they met, how they got married and everything else. I found it really quite compelling and I enjoyed it. Special effects, I thought were quite good. I thought the spider was quite convincing. I thought the score was quite good. So yeah, this isn't Aliens, you know, this isn't...

Dune, this isn't all guns blazing. This is cerebral science fiction. This is meant to be thought provoking and an examination of the human condition using science fiction as a medium. It did really remind me, make me think of Solaris. Perhaps for the Russian version, even more than the George Clooney one, if I'm honest. But I really thought it was, I thought it was really, really good. Yeah.

Bob Mann (27:29.468)
Hmm.

Bob Mann (27:35.566)
Okay, I think we're gonna have some diverse scores here. I say I haven't seen it so I haven't got a score. Scott, score out of 10.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (27:38.406)
You

Scott Forbes (27:44.174)
Yeah, so Andy reminded me there about the visual effects and score, which were the two things I did like about this film. The score in particular was really nice. But as my score, I'm going to give it a 4.

Bob Mann (27:57.698)
four out of ten. Andy, seven. So that's 11 out of 10 giving us a Flickering Dreams score of 5.5 making Spaceman with Adam Sandler a Miss from us. Okay, right. We're now going to have a quick look at the top 10 and I'll just bring that up.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (28:01.062)
Seven, seven out of ten for me, yeah.

Bob Mann (28:26.49)
And there's something a little bit special for Mr. Chalamet about this top 10 because he has now got two films in the top 10. Number one is quite obviously Dune Part Two starring Mr. Chalamet. And sorry. And that has made over nine million quid in its first week, which is pretty good going for a

first week. This is up to the first of March, by the way. For some reason, the week seems to be shorter in terms of what the statistics have been gathered. So actually in the full week it will have been even bigger than that. At number two is Bob Marley, One Love, still doing good business. I still haven't seen this film because of my Egypt holiday and I haven't caught up with that.

That's been four weeks in the charts. It's made close to 14 million pounds, which is pretty good. And number three is Wicked Little Letters that we reviewed last week. Two weeks in the chart. It made over 4 million quid. So I think I said last week, I think that's going to attract word of mouth for the silver dollar to go into cinemas and see it. And I think that seems to be happening. That's a pretty good result for that. At number four is Migration. Five weeks in the chart.

17 and a half million pounds. Kids are still flocking to it in droves or whatever, or flocks. I should say you get a flock of ducks, don't you? Uh, At number five, four weeks in the chart. It's still at number five. Who's going to see this film? It's Madame Web, which again, we reviewed last week and that's made close to 4 million pounds in total.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (30:17.1)
Unbelievable.

Bob Mann (30:18.226)
At number six is the next appearance of Mr. Chalamet as Wonka. 13 weeks in the chart. Creeping up slowly. It's adding a few hundred thousand every week, isn't it? We're getting close to 63 million pounds for Wonka. And number seven is a Hindi film called Manjummel Boys. And, um,

I had to look this up on IMDb and I was most amused by the user review that popped up on my screen at the top of the thing. It said, "Manjummel Boys is a cinematic marvel that captivates audience with its impeccable direction and compelling storytelling. From the outset, it established itself as a masterpiece, deserving of the highest praise. The casting choices are impeccable with each actor delivering performances that are not just

top class, but also remarkably authentic and evocative". So there you are. I know nothing else about the film, but it's been out for two weeks and it's made nearly 400,000. And number eight is The Zone of Interest that we've talked about Ad Infinitum for the last few weeks. Uh, and that's Jonathan Glazer's film five weeks on release, uh, over two and a half million pounds. So keeps, um, sticking in there and adding on, uh, on money.

There's been quite a lot of Oscar releases in the last couple of weeks in films, which have been actually really well attended. I took the illustrious Mrs Movie Man and the Saintly Sarah Shaw to see American Fiction again this week, because they hadn't seen it and they both absolutely thoroughly enjoyed it. And, but if you look around in Cineworld, particularly over this weekend, you will find a lot of the Oscar films out on re-release, which is good.

At number nine, a film again, which we talked about last week is Perfect Days. Did we talk about Perfect Days last week? Andy, did you see that?

Rev. Andy Godfrey (32:19.954)
I haven't seen perfect days, no. No.

Bob Mann (32:21.542)
Oh, right. Well, we clearly didn't talk about it. No, I was looking for it to go and see it and I couldn't actually find it.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (32:26.838)
Yeah, I'm going up to London on Monday for Mark Kermode's show and might try and find a screening in the afternoon somewhere, yeah.

Bob Mann (32:33.37)
Right, right, right. It's probably available to stream on Mubi because it's actually distributed by Mubi. And that's two weeks in the chart at number nine. And at number ten is a film called Sami Swoi... Could be anything. Poczatek. My uncle was Polish so I really should know a bit of Polish. Sami Swoi Poczatek. Which is a Polish film and I'm not...

Rev. Andy Godfrey (32:38.074)
Yeah.

Bob Mann (33:04.346)
I did look at the trailer and it looks like a sort of Polish rom-com set in a in a cut on a country farm. Now I'm not gonna say anything bad about this film partly because I haven't seen it but partly We notably Andy got so much shit for our review of The Peasants that we posted online which is a beloved classic of the

Scott Forbes (33:25.93)
Hahaha!

Bob Mann (33:32.382)
of the Polish community.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (33:34.458)
I am never going to live this down and I shouldn't be telling you but I went to Poland backwards and forwards for ten years and discovered in that time that the Polish word for waffle is actually Godfrey and that's true.

Bob Mann (33:49.103)
Wonderful. Oh dear. Yes. Andy, if you want to have some fun, go and look up the YouTube video for The Peasants and see the diatribe. It almost looks like one of Scott Forbes Facebook posts for one of his films that he's not liked. Yeah. Right. Okay. So...

Rev. Andy Godfrey (33:50.242)
My colleagues thought that was hilarious, of course.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (34:02.08)
I know.

Scott Forbes (34:04.895)
Oh.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (34:05.146)
Hahaha!

Rev. Andy Godfrey (34:09.035)
I am well aware.

Bob Mann (34:16.374)
Those are the two main films we're going to look at. I say we haven't got great coverage of the films this week. In fact, the next set of one, two, three, four, five films, only one of us, I think, have seen. So we'll do some very quick rattle through these films with our initial views. And I say maybe we'll come back to them later. I do have some clips to show from them. So Andy, let's start off with Lisa Frankenstein. Let's see the clip first.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (34:44.838)
There's a bit of... Oh, we're still in the clip, are we? Okay.

Bob Mann (35:27.348)
Has more than a hint of the Tim Burton's about that? Do you want to say something about that Andy?

Scott Forbes (35:29.33)
Mm-hmm.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (35:30.638)
Yeah, there's a bit of Edward Scissorhands about this, yeah. A murderous, A misunderstood teenager and a reanimated Victorian corpse is what we're dealing with here. Can I just say how great it is to see a fantastic title sequence? You remember the old Pink Panther movies where the title sequence actually told some of the story? The background to this story, the background to how the Victorian guy

dies is told in animation in the opening titles. And it's absolutely wonderful. I just enjoyed the heck out of it for that alone. The fact that we've got decent opening title sequence that actually tells a story and tells us how this young Victorian man came to be buried and came to die. Gory, funny, coming of age. It's a love story, it's a murder story, there's so much going on. You name the genre.

And basically it's in there. They throw it in every genre bar the kitchen sink. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. I mean it's just a hundred and seven minutes of total nonsense. But it's great fun. I laughed. I thought that the gore was quite... Some people are complaining it's not gory enough. Well, you know, it's a matter of personal taste. It was gory enough for me. There's a big clue in the title as to actually what's going on. And I think that...

The film just was good fun. You know, what more do you want? A misunderstood teenager in a murderous Victorian reanimated corpse who learns, by the way, how to drive a car without apparently having received any instruction. But it's good. Good, good, good. Eight. Just because I had so much fun. Yeah.

Bob Mann (37:05.572)
Okay.

Bob Mann (37:14.837)
Yeah, it does look good fun. Score out of 10 from you.

Scott Forbes (37:16.468)
Shit.

Bob Mann (37:21.49)
8 out of 10, right. Okay. Next up we've got in our quick reviews, that was longer than a minute, Andy, is Dr. Jekyll starring the one and only Eddie Izzard. Here's a clip of that.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (37:28.987)
Sorry.

Bob Mann (38:01.994)
I think this is on Apple TV, isn't it? Yeah.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (38:04.254)
This is on Apple TV. Dr. Nina Jekyll is making a fortune in the pharmaceutical industry, needs help because she's not very well. She hires an assistant, the assistant finds out a secret. This is Eddie Izzard really really REALLY hamming it up. And I mean really hamming it up. But again, quite a nice horror story. Big gothic mansion, thunder and lightning happening all over the place.

people running around changing and transforming into hideous monsters. Again, good fun. Not the best version of the Jekyll story I've ever seen by a long way. But you know, you've got to go a long way to beat somebody like Eddie Izzard and he's really hamming it up and really playing things for laughs. I thought it was fine.

Bob Mann (38:51.946)
Is it supposed to be a comedy then or is it a horror comedy? Okay, right, okay.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (38:54.026)
It's a horror comedy. Yeah, and I mean IMDB gave it five out of ten, Rotten Tomatoes gave it 38%. I'm a bit high that I enjoyed it a little bit more. I gave it six out of ten. It's not great, it's not bad. It's above average but it's not great.

Bob Mann (39:06.85)
6 out of 10. Okay.

Okey-dokey. So that's Dr. Jekyll on Apple Plus, gets a six out of 10. Next up is a film that I think Scott's the only one who's seen it, which is called The Parades. Let's see a clip of that.

Bob Mann (39:44.494)
Whoa, this looks intriguing. We kind of in All of us Strangers territory here.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (39:47.33)
It does.

Scott Forbes (39:50.658)
a little bit. So yeah, this one surprised me because I saw a trailer for it on Netflix and was like, I don't know what this is, I'm going to watch it. We see our lead character Minako who wakes up on a beach after a natural disaster and she's looking for her son who she can't find anymore. And she gradually comes to realize that she's actually dead and she is now in between worlds.

And she comes across another group of people that have passed on, but are still seemingly on earth. And they have to try and work out their unfinished business and find a way to bond with each other, find out each other's stories and figure out a way to pass to the other side.

Bob Mann (40:36.33)
Japanese version of Heaven Can Wait. Yeah. Okay. All right. That's that looks worth a worth a watch. From the sublime to the ridiculous now we're looking at another film. I think this is on. Oh, yeah, score. Yes. Sorry.

Scott Forbes (40:39.294)
There we go, yeah. And that's on Netflix.

Scott Forbes (40:48.946)
I just quick one to score on that one. I'm gonna give this one a score of seven out of 10.

Bob Mann (40:56.47)
Seven out of 10, okay. Yeah. My, my mind is elsewhere today. It's all over the place. Uh, I was, I was at carousing with old work colleagues till two in the morning, uh, last night. So, um, yeah, I was drinking Japanese whiskey, which was not a great idea, but, uh, yeah, so my, my brain is pickled. Uh, we're, um, gonna look at a film. I think Andy, you've seen this it's out in cinemas. I think though, it might be a limited release. It's the Persian Version.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (40:56.934)
Okay, look out for that.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (41:09.722)
We'll forgive you.

Bob Mann (41:25.282)
version. Here's a clip of that.

Bob Mann (41:51.434)
Hehehehe

Rev. Andy Godfrey (41:53.819)
So this is, you know how much I hated My Big Fat Greek family Wedding whatever, three whatever it was. This is my big fat Iranian family done really well. However, don't be fooled by the trailer. This is a film of two parts. The first part is all singing or dancing. Very very funny animated characters on screen, captions on screen, characters breaking the fourth wall all over the place. After that first half hour 45 minutes it gets really heavy.

Bob Mann (41:57.281)
Yeah.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (42:21.25)
We go into central characters past, we meet her mother who was a teenage bride in Iran. And tragedy ensues. I mean real genuine heartbreaking tragedy. And the film for the first 45 minutes, all singing, all laughing, all dancing, fun. The next 45 minutes it's as heavy and as tragic and as depressing as it gets. And then they introduce a bit of humour again back at the end.

So it's a film of two parts, it's worth seeing. Both parts score seven. But it really is a film. Yeah, but it's almost two films in one. Really, really strange. Really strange, but really good. Yeah, the trailer does not tell you the whole story by a long way. Yeah.

Bob Mann (42:48.311)
Wow.

Bob Mann (42:53.774)
But it sounds like they're in different films. I bet that trailer fits. I bet that trailer trips a lot of people up then, going to see it almost on false pretenses.

Bob Mann (43:09.015)
Okay. All right. Intriguing. Okay. And the last film we're briefly going to look at here is a film called Cabrini. Here's a clip of that.

Bob Mann (43:47.85)
Is that John Lithgow hiding underneath that big bushy beard? Yes. I don't think this one's out yet. Is this one coming out in cinemas, Andy?

Rev. Andy Godfrey (43:49.586)
It is. It is. It is.

Okay, so it's in cinemas, including Cineworld, on March the 8th as part of International Women's Day. And then it's got a more general release in cinemas for March the 15th. So we're in New York, 1889. True story of a nun who wanted to go to China to build orphanages and hospitals was sent instead by the then Pope to New York, claiming a woman could not go to China. The church did not want a woman in China.

Bob Mann (43:59.841)
Okay.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (44:23.178)
She goes to New York, she faces overwhelming odds in building hospitals and orphanages, but manages to do so and ended up forming a foundation that even to this day has got hundreds of orphanages and hospitals in her name all over the world. It's a remarkable film, it's beautifully shot, there's a standard scene of people arriving in New York past the Statue of Liberty, but once you get past that the poverty of New York in 1889 is graphically illustrated.

the obstacles she faced, but not least being a woman in a very men's world and dealing with the poverty is quite incredible. There's one point where she actually bribes the mayor of New York saying, think of all the people who will vote for you if you let me build a hospital. All those people who go in there will vote for you. So she was a very clever lady. Very good film, excellent film, really worth seeking out and I gave it an eight.

Bob Mann (45:15.79)
Okay. Right. So you're saying it's getting a full release in a couple of weeks. So we may, yeah, we may return.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (45:20.702)
on the 15th, but in cinemas as part of International Women's Day on the 8th.

Bob Mann (45:25.406)
Right. Okay. We may return to that and give it a full review at a later date. Okay. That's all of our films we're looking at today. Just in any other business, we are recording this in the week before the Oscars. And so immediately after we finish this podcast, we're going to start another one where we are going to do our predictions as a team for the Oscar categories. So, um, stay tuned.

will probably be released on Saturday at some point when I get around to editing it. So that's the lot for this edition of Flickering Dreams, unless you guys had any other more AOB? Nope. Okay, good. Oh.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (46:06.455)
No, not for me.

Scott Forbes (46:08.09)
I think maybe a quick one. I don't assume you mentioned it last week. I don't think you did. There's an Indian film out in cinemas that I saw called Joshua: Imai Pol Kaka, which was really good fun. It was essentially, if you take a mix of, how could I say it? It's lots of action genres. You take like the Raid films, the John Wick films, but you throw in the melodrama of a

Rev. Andy Godfrey (46:22.7)
Hahahaha

Scott Forbes (46:38.314)
Bollywood romance. It's all out of action, you've got like really cheesy soap opera twists going on but the music and the way it's edited together it's a little bit Baby Driver-ish where a lot of the action scenes are done at the beats of the music so that was really cool. So yeah a bit of cheesy Indian melodrama but with some really cool action scenes. Definitely worth a quick watch if it ever comes to streaming.

Bob Mann (47:01.874)
Good stuff.

Bob Mann (47:05.79)
Yeah, I think, I think that was maybe I'm just trying to pull up last week's, uh, top 10 just to, uh, what was it called again?

Scott Forbes (47:11.942)
Was it in for a wee bit?

Scott Forbes (47:15.934)
Joshua and my Paul Kaka.

Bob Mann (47:18.374)
No, no, it wasn't. It wasn't that one. It was Demon Slayer Kimetsu no Yeah, oh the anime film. Yes, we talked about yeah. Yeah. Okay. All righty. So that's our Flickering Dreams for this episode and my thanks to Scott and Andy. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel by clicking on the little James Bond icon that pops up on the screen just before the video finishes, but my thanks to Scott and Andy

Scott Forbes (47:22.395)
Oh, the anime film.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (47:23.39)
Yeah.

Bob Mann (47:46.81)
And we'll see you again in the Oscar special coming up shortly. All right. Thanks very much guys.

Rev. Andy Godfrey (47:52.526)
Thank you, take care, God bless.

Scott Forbes (47:53.29)
Bye.